0 to 60 in 3.5

i find a lot of comfort and freedom in the fact that if i want to buy a new box of crayons at 4am, i can just make the 30 second drive over to the grocery store and get them. that's not something that i did tonight, but just knowing that i could have made me feel better about my dwindling crayon collection. i'm going absolutely nowhere with this; i just wanted to share it with someone.

if youguys haven't taken the time to check out the links over there to the right, you really should. they are some damn good blogs and most of them are my friends. if by some chance you weren't referred here by arlan's blog, definitely check that out. she and i celebrate our 12th year of friendship this month! happy anniversary arlan! haha. i am SO old, youguys. so old. i know i'm really not, but i have a good amount of younger friends and they make me feel old. i thought hanging with the younger folk was supposed to keep you young. but no, i just feel old. old, old, old.

speaking of age and maturity and all that, i've been thinking about it a lot lately. in many ways i'm mature for my age, while in many, i am the opposite. it's really strange to realize. growing up i was the only child in my house, and my parents spoke to me and treated me like an adult, and other adults always said i was mature. sometimes it posed a problem at school, because even though i was rarely scolded there, when i was, it absolutely infuriated me because they were treating me like a child and i wasn't used to that. i still have an issue with authority. like if i go to a show or something and security talks to my friends and me in a way that i find demeaning, i never just do what they say. i always stay there and speak to them rationally and try to get them to look at me and realize that we're not high school kids trying to overstep boundaries or break rules. they usually don't look at me or listen. it stays with me for hours and sometimes even days. this is why i generally follow rules - not because i necessarily respect them, but because the idea of being spoken to in a way that suggests i'm some sort of child or nuisance upsets me SO much that i can't even bear to think about putting myself in that situation.

also, i love music. i've always loved music. i've always loved going to shows. but lately i don't go to as many, and i really don't travel for them as much. granted, money is an issue, and factor in the reality that i rarely have anyone to go with anymore, but also, it's usually not worth it for me. i mean there are certain bands and artists that i MUST see, and i love being at shows, but i don't like going just for the sake of going anymore. i don't like to stand around for hours just to see live music, whatever it may be. but some of my younger friends can do it so easily and often. damnit, it makes me feel old!

but see i got to a certain point, probably around the time that my father died (i was 17), now that i think about it, when i stopped being mature for my age. that's really only set in, in my mind, in the past couple of years. it was like i felt like i had this maturity beyond most kids my age for so long, and suddenly everything caught up. and now, at 25, i realize that not only was that the case, but i've actually regressed. i can't say exactly why. i'm sure it's a multitude of factors. my father died. my maternal grandparents and an aunt and uncle, all to whom i was close and helped raise me, died. all of them died within a few years of each other. suddenly i looked around and everything was different. i went from having a big family network to just me and my mom. i wasn't ready for that. i have other family, it's true, and even though i see most of them often, i'm not very close to most of them. i've suffered from depression for my entire life, and it got worse and worse as my family members got sick and died, and even worse afterwards when my everyday reality was so completely different. i guess maybe during all of this time that i spent going to funerals, crying, hiding out, trying to cope, and avoiding everything, everyone else matured. they went away to college. they dated more. they moved out. they learned how to take care of themselves in a way that i still haven't. i'm really good at taking care of other people, and i'm good with emotions, but i don't know the first thing about buying a car, getting things fixed, budgeting money, renting an apartment. in the last couple of years i've definitely learned the value of a dollar, but i couldn't begin to weigh in on whether or not [fill in the blank] is a reasonable price for a house. i can correct the spelling and grammar in a published novel or a resume all day long, but if you tell me it costs *this* much for my cat's shots, i have no idea if i'm being ripped off. going to bed early is not something that i can do, despite how tired i am or how early i need to get up. certain "immature" behavior really irritates me, even though i'd still rather go to toys r us than, say, bed bath and beyond. i don't take stupid risks; that's just not the person i am. i'm afraid of many things and i like to stay alive and not bleeding or arrested. in that way, i am responsible. but if a friend is thinking of taking tomorrow off work just because and asks me what they should do, more often than not my response is, "fuck yeah! let's go to the mall!" i want love, but i have no desire to settle down. i have friends who are getting married and having kids! i'm excited for them, and for being able to be a part of these things, but those things terrify me. not that i don't want kids; it's just that there's so much more i want to do first (everything), and the idea of being in a good relationship is much more appealing right now, especially considering i've never actually BEEN in a good relationship. i think that should probably happen before i start thinking about having children. and i don't think i'll ever have the desire to have kids before i'm with someone who i really love, because raising children on my own does not appeal to me at all. for me it's all about sharing it with someone. i don't know. it would be good to meet someone who really GETS me. that would be nice.

that was quite a rant, i'm sorry. and i certainly didn't tie it all together as well as i could have. but i think worrying about making sure these posts are all polished, sparkly, and tied up with ribbon is what has been keeping me from blogging more often. so from here on out, expect more honesty, more randomness, and less neat and tidy paragraphs. and expect another post soon.